Grace Alone

Regeneration is solely the work of God's grace in your soul. by the divine initiative. And you are being rescued from the kingdom of darkness and from the state of the flesh. is by God's grace and by God's grace Alone. You heard the gospel, and your friend heard the gospel.

Why did you become a believer and your friend did not? This is the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm glad you're with us today. We're in a series by R. C.

Sproll, and we're considering the five solas of the Reformation. and today he considers sola gratia. Grace alone. We're going to continue with our series of study on the five solas. of the Protestant Reformation.

And closely related to the doctrine of sola fide is the doctrine of.

Solar Garazi. Which means literally, by grace alone.

Now, in the Middle Ages, in the Roman Catholic Church, of course, the leading theologian was St. Thomas Aquinas. And the church since that time has referred to Thomas as the angelic. Doctor or the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor of the Angels. They have another nickname.

For the great Saint Augustine, who ministered at the end of the fourth century and into the beginning of the fifth century. And Augustine's nickname is Dr. Grazia. That is, he's known as the Doctor of Grace. in church history because he is the one who first formulated this idea of sola grazia.

And so we look back to Augustine and the controversies in which he was involved to get a source of understanding of this idea of sola grazia. Let's look first at the historical provocation that led to this phrase in the teaching of Augustine. And it came about in the so-called Pelagian controversy that took place roughly around the turn of the century from the 4th to the 5th centuries. And it began when Pelagius was a British monk. who came to Rome to visit Rome and heard of the reputation of the great Augustine.

But when he came to Rome, he was appalled. By the behavioral patterns and the licentiousness of members of the church and those who were professing Christ. They seemed to be living godless lives. And so, in a very real sense, Pelagius wanted to be a reformer of the morals of the Christian church of his day. And he was disturbed by a famous prayer.

that had been written by Saint Augustine. where in that prayer Augustine Said this, O God. Grant what thou dost command. And command What thou dost desire.

Now the second part of the prayer. that God would command from his creatures. whatever it was pleasing for God to command, Plagias certainly agreed that God had the right to give. To impose obligations on the creatures that he has formed in his own image. He believed that God was morally sovereign in that he is the lawgiver, not we.

We are not the ones who create the law of God. No problem with that part of the prayer. It was the first part of the prayer that distressed him so greatly, in which Augustine said, Oh, Lord, Grant. What thou dost command? The plagueist was puzzled by that.

Why would you ask God? To grant you, a grant is a gift, after all. why would you ask God to grant you Whatever he commands. Indicates that God is commanding that you do something that without this grant, without this gift, You cannot. Do.

Well, this is exactly what Augustine was saying. Augustine was saying that God gave His law to man in creation, and man was created to mirror and reflect the character of God. God is holy, and we were created with a mandate to be holy. A mandate to be righteous. A mandate to be perfect.

But Augustine says In the fall. Man was ruined. As he fell into a corrupt status by which it was no longer possible for that human being to obey all of the commands of God, that man was no longer morally able or morally powerful enough. To live a perfect life. And so that the only way we could become righteous.

would be through God's help, through God's Gift of grace.

So it's one thing to consider man in creation. It's another thing to consider man in his fallen condition. In his created original situation, man could be righteous according to Augustine. After the fall, because of original sin, man could no longer obey the law of God.

Now, again, remember that the doctrine of original sin does not refer specifically. to the first sin. The original one, you know, the first one that got everybody in trouble.

Now, what original sin defines or describes in theology is the result of that first sin. The result being The fallen Corruption that was the subsequent judgment of God upon the first sin.

So that after Adam's sin, after Adam and Eve fell, then their future descendants are born in sin. born with this human nature that is corrupt. By birth. And is no longer able to achieve. Righteousness.

That's why Augustine said: since the fall, for us to do anything right requires the grace of God.

Now this is where Pelagius objected. He said that the sin of Adam Affected Only Adam. There was no transfer. to his progeny of the consequences of this sin. We only sin not because we're born sinners, But we only sin when we imitate what Adam did.

that we are those who ape our original father when we sin. But Adam's sin did not do anything to change the constituent nature of humanity. We are born today in the same condition As Adam was, when he was first created.

So that we have the same abilities, the same powers that Adam had when God first made him. Pelagius went on to say That We as human beings still have the power to live perfect lives. Without grace.

Now, it's not that he was opposed to grace. He said, not only can we theoretically live perfect lives without the grace of God, but there are people, in fact, many people, who achieve that. and who actually live. Righteous lives.

Now it's made more difficult because so many people have echoed and imitated Adam by copying, being copycat sinners, as it were. That we now live in a society, an environment where there's so much sin that that makes it hard for the person who still has the constituent nature of the original Adam to make it through life without sinning because there are these negative pressures all around him. But still, The ability is there. The moral ability to perfection remains in the soul and the heart of human beings since Adam.

Now he went on to say that grace Helps. He wasn't opposed to grace. His concept was this: that grace facilitates Living a righteous life. And of course, the word facilitate means. to make easier.

But Grace. Pelagius insisted. is not necessary. For a person to be righteous.

So that was the issue that provoked so much of Augustine's insightful teaching on the fall of man and on the doctrine of election or of predestination.

Now as a result of this conflict The church of that time. Roundly and soundly condemned Pelagius. As a heretic. and completely rejected Pelagian theology, not only in the fifth century, but again in the first three canons of the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Church. Really?

affirmed its judgment against Pelagianism. And in fact, in the fifth century, the church ruled in favor of Saint Augustine vis-a-vis. Pelagius. And the principal idea of Augustine can be summarized With these words. Moral inability.

Namely, that the fall was so. radical and so corrupt. Sin so invaded our humanity That we are born In a state that the Bible describes in terms of being in a state of spiritual death. or in bondage to sin, and saying that we are morally impotent. To do the things of God.

Augustine said there can be an outward conformity to the law of God from unconverted people and unregenerate people, what Calvin would later call civic righteousness or civic virtue. There are still parents that have a natural love for their children and so on. But there is no inclination or desire of the human heart. for the things of God. Because the heart of fallen humanity is now a heart of stone.

And in that heart, it only has wicked desires continually. And Augustine said, even after conversion, That our best works. Even with the assistance of divine grace. are splendid vices. Because sin is so damaging that it attaches itself to us even after conversion until we are glorified by God.

in heaven. And so Augustine is saying, without God's doing the work, we are powerless. To do Spiritual good.

Now that was the issue then. There emerged after this initial dispute A so-called middle ground position by a man by the name of John Cassianus, whose anglicized name is John Cassian, and Cassian. Was disturbed about some elements of Augustine's teaching, and though he rejected pure Pelagianism, gave a modified view, which since that time. Has come to be described as quote, semi-Pelagianism. And that means partial Pelagianism.

And let me just give you a brief recapitulation of the seven main points. of Cassian's semi-Pelagian Position, as he originally articulated, and I deal with that again in the book, Willing to Believe, as I mentioned in the first lecture. The first point of Cassian and his supporters was this. That Augustine's views are new. and represent a departure from the teaching of the Church Fathers, especially Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome.

Cassian himself was a student of Chrysostom, and he believed that Augustine was taking the Church in a new direction. Second, Augustine's teaching on predestination as it related to Solagracia cripples the force of preaching, of reproof. and moral energy. And plunges men into despair and introduces a fatal. Necessity.

And so, what the fundamental point was this: that Cassianus believed. That God's grace is necessary for salvation. It's not just something that helps. But it's absolutely essential for salvation. Semiplegianism then and now believes that there really was a fall in Adam, there really was a change in the constituent nature of human beings after the sin of Adam and Eve, and that this fall Did very serious damage to the moral capacity and moral power of fallen human beings.

Semi-Pelagianism acknowledges that we are born sinners. and that we have an inherent corruption. That the will, the soul, and the heart are severely weakened by sin.

However, It is not so serious. That Man is left in a state of complete moral inability with respect to the things of God. Let me go back to this summary of Cassian. Though God's grace is necessary for salvation and assists the human will in doing good. It is man, not God, who must, in the final analysis, will that which is good.

Grace is given, quote, in order that he who has begun to will may be assisted. Not to give the power to have faith. itself. In other words, what they are saying historically is that the initial. Conversion of man and the coming to Christ is a synergistic.

Work. It is a cooperative venture between God's grace and man's will. If God gives us no grace, We could hear the preaching of the gospel every day. And never come to faith because we could not exercise faith. without God's help.

And the help that God gives us to exercise grace and to come to Christ for our salvation. is a necessary aid for that to happen. But that grace that assists people to come to Christ and to embrace Him in faith Resistible.

So God the Holy Spirit In His grace we helps, woos, illumines. Attends the preaching of the gospel to stoop to our weakness because we are severely weakened by the fall. But in the fall, there remains, as I've said in other contexts, a little island of righteousness unaffected by the fall, where still there is this power left in the will. that can be stirred by the fallen person while there is yet unconverted, and unregenerated, There is still the power in the will. Two.

either accept The offer and the assistance of grace, or to reject it. The choice is ours. Again, we couldn't be saved without grace. Because we're so weak. But we're not so weak that God actually has to create faith in us.

for us to come. He offers his assistance if we accept it. We are saved if we don't we are lost. And of course, it's up to us to make the choice. That's why so much of evangelism in semi-Pelagian camps.

Focuses attention on the human decision. This is decisional. conversion. The way you become a Christian is you make a decision. to follow Christ.

Now obviously. Both sides of this controversy believe that people are called upon to make decisions. and to make choices. Every day I'm confronted with a myriad opportunities of possible choices. That I can choose to do this or to do that, to go one way or to go another way.

And the church is always called to make that decision, to follow Christ, to choose the things of God. But here we're talking about the initial point of conversion. Where we are transformed from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of life, where we are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life. There we want to know how the will is involved. And what the reformers, Calvin and Lothar, taught Following Augustine, was that in the fall The power of making choices.

freely. was not lost. That human beings are created with certain faculties by God. We are given a mind. with which to think?

We are given a heart with which to have affections. and we are given a will by which to make choices. That is, we are volitional creatures, creatures who are held responsible for our decisions that we make and the choices that we make that are of a moral sort.

So Calvin, Luther, Augustine, Edwards all believed that in the fall, the will of man was not destroyed. That man is still a volitional creature. that he still makes choices. The problem is That will is imprisoned By sin. And so that the choices we make are made according to our sinful impulses, our sinful desires.

You think of a person who is a drug addict or an alcoholic or something like that, and they say, I try to stop using heroin But I can't. He's still free in the sense that nobody is forcing him to do what he does. Nobody outside of himself is forcing him to sin. He sins because he chooses to sin, and he chooses freely in the sense that no one is coercing him. But freedom is a fairly magnificent word to apply to somebody who's bound.

their vices. who's incarcerated by their moral condition.

Now again, the language that the Bible uses to describe what we're like in the flesh is that we are dead in sin. Biologically alive. spiritually dead.

Now the semi-platin position says Man is sick. He's very, very sick. desperately sick. can't possibly survive without the help of God. But he's not spiritually dead.

He still has this ability, this pulse that exists in him, that when confronted with the assistance of God's grace, can reach out and say yes. Rather than but he can also say no. And some people exercise their will while they're still unconverted to say yes. Then, when they say yes with faith, then they are reborn. What Augustine was saying, what Calvin was saying, what Luther was saying, what Edwards was saying, what classical Reform theology says.

Is the fall is so great that it leaves us in a state of moral inability, still make choices, but we will never choose the things of God because they are contrary. to the flesh. Jesus says to his audience in John 6, No man can come to me. Unless it is given to him by the Father. And Jesus doesn't say no man can come to him unless God helps him.

He says no man can come to him unless God in fact gives it to him. I talk to my Armenian friends all the time about this. And say look. Let me ask you a question. Why is it That you're a believer.

Maybe members of your own family or friends that you have are not believers when you've both. heard the gospel. And they said, well, because I responded to the gospel and the other person didn't. I said, okay. You said yes.

To the aid of God's grace, God gave the same offer to your neighbor, and your neighbor said, No, I want to know this. Why did you say yes? And your neighbour said No. Oh, because I'm free. I said, I understand that.

But why in your freedom Were you inclined to say 'yes' to Grace? and your neighbor said 'No'. Is it because you're more righteous than that person is?

Now, what would any Arminian say? Of course not. I don't believe that I'm in there because I'm righteous. I say, why not? What your friend did was the wrong thing.

It's a sinful thing to say no to an offer of divine grace for salvation. Wouldn't you agree? And they say, well, yeah. And I said, and the right thing is to say yes. I said, yes.

In the final analysis, the reason why you're saved and that person isn't. It's because you did the right thing and they did the wrong thing. And if you really think that that's the reason you're saved, the danger you're in is in actually trusting in what you have done. rather than somebody else. How far away is that?

From Rome. If you really believe That is what you did. that made the difference.

Solagrazius says. Salvation is monergistic at the beginning. Regeneration is solely the work of God's grace in your soul. Now after he makes that change in your heart. After he changes the disposition of your soul.

You come, you believe, you work for your entire Christian life in cooperation with sanctifying grace, and the rest of the Christian life is synergistic. But the beginning. is by the divine initiative. And you're being rescued from the kingdom of darkness and from the state of the flesh. is by God's grace And by God's grace.

Alone. That's the doctrine of solar gracia. according to the Reformation. And we are thankful for that amazing grace. We're glad you're with us for this edition of Renewing Your Mind.

That was R. C. Sproll from his series, God Alone. doctor Sprohlg goes deep on each of the five solas, helping us understand the good news of the gospel and what key truths were at the heart of the Protestant Reformation. Request this 10-part series when you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight.

And to thank you for your support, we'll send you the series on DVD, we'll also unlock the messages and study guide for you in the free Ligonier app, and send you a Renewing Your Mind notebook.

So respond now at renewingyourmind.org before this offer ends in only a few hours.

Well, how does God declare an unjust person just? Don't miss next Saturday's episode here. on Renewing Your Mind.